


All You Have

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fever, M/M, Malaria, Oblivious, Stranded, Stuck in the middle of nowhere with someone who's mildly ill/injured & no way to call for help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23784946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: In which Ward is sick, and Danny and Ward take obliviousness to new heights while stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Relationships: Ward Meachum/Danny Rand
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	All You Have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beyond_belief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/gifts).



### 1\. Danny

The valley was beautiful, objectively speaking. Sheer mountain walls, laced with pine trees and threaded with waterfalls, rose above them, with their distance-blued cousins looming even higher. The crisp, cool air smelled fresh and clean, with not a trace of exhaust or perfume or anything human-made. It was utterly unspoiled, and under normal circumstances Danny would have loved it here.

Right now it felt less like an escape and more like the jaws of a trap that had already closed around them.

Danny slithered back into camp down a slide of scree from his latest attempt to climb up the valley side and get cell reception. There just wasn't anywhere around here that was high enough to get past the mountains. It was becoming clear that the only way to get a message out was to retrace their steps on the three-day hike up and then down a torturously steep and winding path that had gotten them here.

When he got back to the campsite, Ward was sitting up outside the tent, glaring at him. 

"I told you to stop doing that," Ward said hoarsely. "If you fall and break your neck, I'm going to bury you under a headstone that says, 'Here lies an idiot.'"

"Let me feel your forehead."

"I'm not _that_ sick," Ward protested through chattering teeth, trying to duck the back of Danny's wrist. It didn't work.

"It could get worse, though. We don't know for sure."

They both knew what it was, though. Malaria. Ward had contracted it a few months ago, and so far hadn't had major symptoms, but of course there was a flare-up while they were in the middle of nowhere with what was, in retrospect, a stupidly limited amount of meds.

"You're shivering a lot more. You should take another pill," Danny said, pouring one out into his hand from their dwindling supply.

"They make me sick," Ward complained, but he took it with water from the canteen Danny handed him. The one tiny silver lining was that they had plenty of cool, fresh, and clean water from the waterfalls cascading into the valley all around. And they had the food they'd brought with them, and fish in the ponds, and edible plants in the woods. They weren't going to starve. They could have stayed up here for weeks, and in fact that had been the plan, investigating the local caves; legend in the towns down in the valley said that there were portals to another realm in the caves up here. Now the plan was mostly just trying to let Ward rest up enough to hike back down and hope it didn't get bad enough to have to medevac him out. Danny had been trying very hard not to think about all the horrifying symptoms he'd googled during Ward's first, mild bout with it. _His spleen could rupture!_

"I'm fucking this up," Ward muttered, sinking back down onto his sleeping bag. "This entire trip. Sorry."

"Stop it. No, you're not. I'm glad you're here with me. I mean, I wish you weren't sick, but that's not your fault." Danny sat beside him and ran a light hand over his shoulder. Ward's T-shirt was soaked with sweat. "Want to change?"

"No," Ward muttered, but he held still while Danny stripped him out of the shirt and got him into one of Danny's -- just about the only clean thing that was left after hiking up a mountain for the better part of a week. Future plans also included laundry in the rock pool below their campsite. For now, Danny dropped Ward's sweat-soaked T-shirt in a crumpled heap and wrestled him into a Bayard Center shirt. Ward leaned into him, pliable and half limp.

"At least it doesn't have a dragon on it," Danny said, and Ward gave a sort of halfway laugh and then turned his face away as if he was embarrassed. His hair, rumpled and sweaty, pressed against Danny's chin. They stayed that way for a minute, and then Ward pushed away abruptly, and Danny was sharply aware of the loss of Ward's feverish body heat. It was so _hard_ to get Ward to let Danny touch him as much as he wanted to; Ward would tolerate it up to a point, but then the hedgehog spines came out.

"How's your head?" Danny asked, as Ward lay back on the sleeping bag.

Ward started to shake his head, aborting the movement mid-shake with a wince. "Ought to save the aspirin in case it gets worse." He squinted at Danny. "You're going to say something about pressure points, aren't you?"

"Well, it _does_ work, Ward." Danny settled on his elbow on the sleeping bag next to Ward, trying to get comfortable. He laid a hand on the back of Ward's neck, felt a quick shiver pass through Ward. "Let me try. It'll make you feel better, I swear."

Ward grumbled, but he stretched out with a soft groan. Danny ran his fingertips down the strong lines of Ward's neck, found the chakra points, pressed gently and then deeper. Ward groaned again, quietly, and leaned into him.

"Better?"

"Ngghh."

Ward settled, eventually, and Danny reluctantly had to pull his hand away to go feed the fire. This high, there might be snow leopards and wolves, maybe even tigers, after the sun went down. Ward drowsed, but when Danny brushed a light hand across his forehead after coming back from the creek with a fresh load of water, he was even hotter to the touch.

Ward drifted awake again as Danny was working on the headache and fever pressure points in his hands. "Wha," he managed, looking up at Danny with a blearily dazed expression. He twisted weakly, trying to pull his hand free.

"Ward, settle down." Danny pressed his fingertips into the point between Ward's forefinger and thumb, the joining-the-valley point. "It'll make you feel better. Just relax."

Ward settled, but kept looking up at him, his eyes oddly searching, as if he was looking for something in Danny's face, almost but not quite finding it. There was trust there too, and Danny felt him relaxing further, calming under the touch like a panicked horse.

"Now I'm going to move on to the points in your face," Danny said, and Ward nodded slightly. He shivered when Danny's hands settled on his face, and then relaxed again.

### 2\. Ward

Ward's head hurt like there were metal spikes in each temple, but Danny's hands danced across his forehead and cheeks, resting gentle pressure under the eyes and along his temples, leaving a soothing absence of pain in their wake. Damn pills didn't do much but upset his stomach and disorient him. Danny's hands, though ... Danny's hands trailed soft relief across his skin.

He closed his eyes, leaning into it, leaning into _him._

Wanting things he couldn't have.

"I'm the one who should be sorry," Danny murmured, and Ward opened his eyes and looked up at him. 

"Have you done something lately to be sorry about?"

"Bringing you out here. Dragging you halfway around the world on my quest."

Ward snorted and closed his eyes again. "It's not like things were working out for me so great back there."

The idea of going back was something he'd never seriously entertained since they got here, for all his protests to the contrary. What was in New York for him, anyway? Failed relationships and a company he'd never really wanted to run.

He wasn't sure when _home_ had turned into wherever Danny was.

He was very aware of Danny's presence, a solid bulwark against the chill of the world beyond his sleeping bag. He was shivering again, simultaneously too hot and too cold, but Danny's hands moved lightly across his face and shoulders, and he settled into the touch as the shivering eased.

Ward just wanted to press into him, lose himself in the darkness behind his closed eyelids and the feel of Danny against him.

He'd been fascinated with Danny ever since Danny came back to New York -- at first pushing him away as hard as he could, and then, as they started tentatively settling into a friendlier arrangement, keeping the hardest possible lock on the attraction that kept pulling him toward Danny's manic energy and sweet personality. It still amazed him that he hadn't fucked it up yet, pushed for more than he could have and ruined everything.

But he hadn't really thought about it quite like that. The realization took his breath away ... and left him even more worried that he was going to say or do the wrong thing, give himself away. He was afraid to move or speak.

It still amazed him that he hadn't fucked it up yet -- that no matter what he did, somehow whatever it was that he and Danny had proven to be resilient enough to bend around Ward's fuckups and come back stronger. Just being with Danny, even if it wasn't quite the way he _wanted_ to be with Danny, had to be enough. He didn't dare push for more; he was afraid to risk the one good thing in his life.

He couldn't lose Danny too. He just couldn't.

Danny pulled away abruptly. Ward murmured an automatic protest, reaching for him. Danny caught and squeezed his hand.

"I'm just going to build up the fire and set things up for evening. I'll be here. Say something if you need me."

The sense of peace and relative lack of discomfort lingered even after Danny was no longer touching him. Ward listened to the calming sounds of Danny moving around the camp, clinking and clattering. Danny was never still; there was a restless twitchiness to him, deeply irritating at times when they were sharing too-small tents and hotel rooms. But it was also part of what made him Danny. Ward wouldn't have changed it for the world, and at a time like this, it was a constant reminder of Danny's presence even when Ward couldn't see him.

The headache was coming back, but vestiges of relief remained, and beyond that, a kind of peace that he only got when Danny was around. It was as if simply being in Danny's presence settled something inside him, left him more peaceful and calm.

He was nearly asleep when something moved against him, and he jerked awake to the feeling of Danny climbing into the sleeping bag with him.

"Wha -- what are you doing?" He'd already sweated through the T-shirt, but it was more than that; Danny had seen him worse off than this, after all. It was that they didn't _do_ this. There were certain lines of physical closeness they hadn't crossed yet in these past few months of close proximity, and they were definitely going over the line now. 

And he didn't trust himself enough right now not to give too much away. Not with the fever, and his emotions so close to the surface.

"Ward," Danny sighed, and draped an arm across his side. He caught Ward's hand and gently worked the muscles between the bones, a slight pinch that seemed to ease off on the headache starting to grind its way into his temples. "Go to sleep."

He knew that if he pushed it, Danny would've pulled back and respected his space. But he felt too shitty to care. He couldn't tell if this was actually making him feel better, or just giving him something to focus on other than how lousy he felt, but he relaxed into Danny's lean, muscular body and let his eyes drift shut again. Danny was wrapped around him like a shield against the world. He felt safe. Protected.

Loved.

### 3\. Danny

Danny didn't fall sleep, exactly; it was, to be fair, not actually all that comfortable nestled up against a Ward who was throwing off body heat like a furnace. But his presence really seemed to be settling Ward down, and it felt like the fever was down a lot, too. So he drowsed, enjoying the physical proximity.

Danny had a theory that his own ability to heal faster than usual hadn't been lost along with the Iron Fist - he wasn't sure because he didn't exactly have a baseline for how long it took most people to heal bruises and such, but he was pretty sure that being able to walk and fight on a broken leg a week after major surgery was _way_ outside the bounds of what regular humans considered normal. And if he still had some of that, then maybe it wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility that he might be able to infuse a little of it into Ward. He'd seen chi healers in K'un-Lun who could do amazing things, with no Iron Fist needed. He'd never thought himself capable of such things until Bakuto had shown him how, but now he wondered if he could give Ward a much-needed chi power-up just from being here.

Eventually, as dusk settled on the valley, he laid down Ward's hand carefully and managed to slither out of the sleeping bag without waking him. 

The air was freshly chilly after the close confines of the bag and Ward's feverish heat. Sweat dried on Danny's body as he stirred up the fire and collected more firewood. Vestiges of sunset color lingered in the sky above the mountains, and the peaks were luminous in the pink and blue light.

They were camped on a small flat space above a rushing creek. Danny hiked down the steep path to wash his hands and face in the clear, cold water. He dumped out the warmish water from the collapsible camp bucket and refilled it. This high in the mountains and this far from people, there was little need to filter it; there was nothing to pollute it of either an animal or human nature. By daylight, the water was crystal clear; he could see all the way to the bottom of the rock pool. In the dusk, it reflected the colors of the sky.

He wished Ward was feeling well enough to enjoy the beauty of the place. He'd been really looking forward to a couple of weeks in the high mountain country, away from stress and cities -- and yeah, looking for a portal to K'un-Lun, obviously, but also just hanging out with Ward and getting him to chill out a bit. Take naps. Meditate. Cuddle a lot, if he could get Ward to cooperate, because he wasn't sure if he'd ever met someone who needed cuddling more than Ward did.

This really, _really_ wasn't going the way he'd had in mind.

But Ward didn't seem to be dangerously ill, just uncomfortable. And hopefully the fever would break soon, Danny thought optimistically.

Back at the campsite, he got out their two pots, the bigger one and the little saucepan they used to make tea or coffee over the fire. Ward hadn't eaten anything today, and Danny hoped he could get some tea into him, and maybe a little soup for the salt and calories. 

"Is that tea?" Ward said hoarsely from the tangle of sleeping bags. "Please tell me it's not that herb stuff that tastes like it's been strained through used socks."

"It's good for you."

Ward struggled a bit, and managed to sit up, propping his back against a rock. "Yeah, it tastes like it."

"You need to get some food or something in you."

Ward closed his eyes for a minute, with exasperation that broke into a faint smile. He seemed to be feeling better, Danny thought; he was still sweaty and pale, but earlier today he hadn't wanted to do anything except sleep. "Okay," Ward said, "look, I'll make you a deal, stop feeding me tea and I'll eat something, okay?"

Danny perked up. "Cocoa, maybe?"

"Sure, why not."

Danny wrapped the tail of his shirt around his hand to grasp the handle of the pan, poured the tea into a mug (he could always drink it himself), and started mixing up some cocoa. The soup was beginning to steam. Ward watched all of this from his seat against the boulder, yawning occasionally, but he didn't look like he was going to keel over or anything.

"You look a lot better," Danny said.

"I got some sleep, decent sleep this time, no dreams or anything. It seems to have helped. Uh .... thanks for the help with that, I guess." Ward rubbed at his face and swiped his hair out of his eyes. He gave a small, deprecating laugh. "As for _looking_ good, ha, funny. I must be a mess."

"You look great," Danny said without thinking. Ward gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Healthy, I mean."

Ward still looked as if he suspected a trap, but then Danny brought him a tin camp cup of cocoa, and cupped his hands around Ward's shaky ones until he was sure Ward had it. He hovered to help if needed, but Ward glared him off, so he went back to stir the soup.

It was full dark now. Danny brought two bowls of soup over to the sleeping-bag nest, and ate sitting beside Ward, his back against the boulder, his shoulder against Ward's. Ward drank most of the cocoa and at least half the soup.

"You _are_ feeling better."

A smile flickered around the edges of Ward's mouth. "Yes, okay, fine, I'm feeling better."

Danny grinned in a rush of pure relief, and without really thinking about it, he leaned over and kissed Ward's temple. "Good," he said, and then realized Ward was looking at him with a certain shocked softness. "What?"

"It's just that you never kissed me before."

"Oh, I ... huh." Danny rewound things mentally. Maybe he hadn't. People didn't really do that much here. "Do you not want me to?"

Ward made a tiny frustrated sound and took a drink of cocoa.

"What's wrong? Look, Ward ..." Danny took a deep breath. "I _do_ love you, Ward, and --" Ward choked on his cocoa. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Ward wheezed. He caught his breath and wiped his hand across his face. "You love me like .... family, you mean."

"Well, yes, of course, if that's what you want."

"If that's what I want," Ward echoed. He sounded bleak, and laughed a little and leaned his head back against the rock. "Yeah, okay."

Danny had the frustrating sense of Ward slipping farther away from him, emotionally speaking. It was so unpredictable; sometimes handling Ward was like that exercise the Thunderer used to make them do, with an egg and two greased spoons.

"Look, Ward, I love you," he said, and Ward seemed almost to flinch. "I thought we settled that back in New York. And it doesn't really matter to me _how_ \--" Not _that_ much, anyway. "I just like having you with me, however you want to be with me."

Ward's gaze sharpened from the feverish vagueness to something closer to its usual intensity. "What on earth are we talking about here, Danny?"

"I don't know!" Danny said, exasperated. "What are _you_ talking about?"

"I have no idea!" Ward said, and they stared at each other in the firelight in a sort of mutually baffled frustration.

Then Ward muttered, "Screw it. Let's blame it on the fever." And before Danny had any idea what was happening, Ward leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips.

" _Oh,"_ Danny said as soon as Ward pulled away, comprehension dawning like the buckets of cold water that Lei-Kung used to dump over his head when he failed to do the spoon thing. "Oh -- no, wait -- come back --"

He caught Ward with a hand around the slightly sweaty back of his neck, and pulled him back, and kissed him again, and then rested his forehead against Ward's. 

"That _is_ what's been the matter with you," Danny said, half-laughing. "I mean, besides the malaria."

Ward choked on a laugh. "What, the malaria isn't enough?"

Danny laughed, and suddenly he just desperately, wildly _loved him,_ this prickly asshole who had somewhere along the line attached himself to Danny with a tenacity that Danny would never have expected a year ago. Danny cupped his hand around Ward's neck and kissed him on the temple and beside his eye and beside his mouth, and then on the lips again, and then hugged him.

"You _have_ been unusually huggy lately," Ward said, into his shoulder.

"Yeah, you seemed kind of bothered by it."

Ward huffed another slightly choked and incredulous laugh. "Yes, definitely bothered, but not in the way you mean."

"Oh," Danny said, with another dawning rush of comprehension. "Are we actually really bad at this?"

"You really have to ask?"

Danny blew out a breath and ran a hand through Ward's tousled hair, and then got up.

" _Hey!"_ Ward sounded genuinely put out.

"I gotta feed the fire so the snow leopards don't eat us. Be right back."

"Wait, the what now?" Ward said, alarmed.

Danny shoved some branches into the fire and put the big hunk of driftwood on it that he'd picked out for a night log. It would smolder all night and make it easier to stir it up in the morning.

"Tent now," he said, chivvying Ward to his feet. "No snow leopards in the tent."

"You are so weird," Ward muttered, draping himself on Danny. "I cannot believe all of this is happening at a time when I feel too crappy to have the slightest interest in sex. Uh ... just to make sure that I haven't wildly misinterpreted everything that's going on, sex might be on the table later, right?"

"Yes, Ward," Danny said, laughing softly, and settled him in the tent with the sleeping bag tucked around him. "It is totally on the table for later, when you're feeling better."

"Good, that's good, I, uh ..." Ward curled his body as if he was trying to maximize surface contact with Danny, who was still sitting beside him on the other rolled-out sleeping bag. "Love hasn't really worked that well for me, historically speaking, you know."

"I know," Danny said, and leaned over to kiss him lightly on his slightly sticky forehead, and then, gentle and lingering, on his lips. "But I'm still going to be here in the morning. Go to sleep."


End file.
